Peter Orszag

Peter Orszag, in full Peter Richard Orszag, (born Dec. 16, 1968, Boston, Mass., U.S.), American economist who served as an economic adviser to U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton, director of the Congressional Budget Office (2007–08), and director of the Office of Management and Budget (2009–10) in the administration of Pres. Barack Obama.

Orszag graduated from the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, and he earned an undergraduate degree in economics from Princeton University in 1991. He received a master’s degree (1992) and a Ph.D. (1997) from the London School of Economics, and he worked for the Council of Economic Advisers (1993–94, 1995–96) during the Clinton administration. From 1997 to 1998 he served as a special economic adviser to President Clinton. Orszag entered the private sector in 1998, working as a budget consultant and teaching macroeconomics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (2001–07); while there he researched topics such as retirement planning, tax policy, and higher-education funding. In 2007 Orszag was appointed head of the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government agency that provides legislators with budget projections and economic forecasts. He left that position in 2008 when President-elect Barack Obama nominated him to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Orszag assumed the post in January 2009 after being confirmed by the Senate.

In response to the financial crisis that had emerged in 2008, Orszag supported government spending as a means to revive the U.S. economy, and he helped write the $787 billion stimulus package that was passed in February 2009. However, he also believed that the growing federal deficit was unsustainable. Citing rising costs of health care as a leading threat to the country’s economy, he played a key role in the ensuing health care reform effort. A number of measures he supported, such as a tax on high-value insurance plans and the formation of an independent commission to recommend reforms to Medicare, were included in the legislation that was passed in March 2010. Orszag stepped down as OMB director in July 2010.